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Author: Livia N

random weekend in the middle of the week – Pick Your Own

I had Jury Duty. Only I called the night before and was told they didn’t need me. So did I go to work like a responsible citizen? No! Of course not! I took today off work. Whee!

Plan a: wake up at 6:30am, get on the road by 7:15; get to a pick your own farm in New Jersey by 8am; pick stuff; drive to a pick your own farm in Pennsylvania; pick more stuff (they have late season strawberries!); have lunch with my parents; drive home; pick up two yoga classes that I usually am working during and have never tried these teachers.

How did that work?

Well, I got out of the house more like 8am. Still pretty darn perky.

Got to the PYO farm in New Jersey. I really like this place; it has a huge variety of things to pick. I started off with slips to pick blackberries and blueberries.

blackberries I love blackberries more than any other fruit-type thing. When I was little, we had blackberries growing in our backyard: tight, little fruits full of flavor. And I’m always a bit disappointed by these lush, overflowing things that have been selected as the ideal blackberry. Well, it looks like the breeding of grafting or whatever you need to do to make the big berries, isn’t 100% because I could find more compact berries on the same brambles as the juicier ones. \o/! So I went down a row and back up and had filled my two containers-worth of blackberries. (and then there was a moment of ick, when my feet, wet with the lingering dew of the humid summer morning, hit the sandy driveway… and there was unexpected sandiness of unpleasantness.)

blueberries I caught the trailing end of the blueberry crop, but I’ve always had a fondness for smaller berries, here, too. So it just took a bit more patience to pull a berry here and there until … well, the container wasn’t full, but I was done.

(side note: that’s twice now this week that I have seemed to be overheated without feeling hot at all. I’m a little worried by this development, but I figure summer won’t last too much longer and my body can figure out its issues if I give it time)

So I decided not to pick peaches or white grapes or anything else on offer, but I did buy some peach and nectarine seconds. (and, yes, a doughnut – they were making them on site)

And then I drove straight to my parents’. We went out for lunch. I suggested the little Mexican shack that had opening up fairly close to their place, but my mother said there was a place in town that was better… turned out to be Qdoba (WTF parents?). Apparently, they’ve started doing their regularly because it is right next to the social security office. (awww… old parents) But they were paying, so I only hassled them a little about it.

Gave them some blackberries and drove home and took a nap.

Dubious food – vintage caviar

So I got two small jars of cheap caviar from my mother (*cough*about 5 years ago*cough*) because she hadn’t gotten around to using them (*cough*for about 5 years before that*cough*).

Do you think it’s a fair experiment to open them up and poke at them a bit to see if they are okay?

Needless to say, if there is an expiration date on these, we are way past. But sometimes those are purely hypothetical.

(no, there’s no bulging. Yes, I know to abort the plan if there are funny smells (what is a funny smell when you are talking about fish eggs? Yes, I know to abort if there is a large growth of mold.)

ETA: received following comment;

And, okay, so the glass is dark, but they’ve been packed in water and salt…you know, I’m still saying you should dump them. Salt’s great and all, but if the eggs’ve been packed in it that long then I’m thinking the salt’s had time to dissolve, and regrow around and inside the eggs…either way you’re looking at inedible.

Removed jars from cardboard packaging and saw that one of them had definite green colors going on. Disposed of them, jars unopened.

productive but sleepy

I have been almost as productive as my ideal schedule of me! Wow.

I made it to karate both Monday and Wednesday (though I’m a bit hobbled by it still, and I’m glad I have a while between Wednesday and next Monday for my body to recover).

I made it to yoga Thursday night.

And I’ve cooked everything except the imam bayildi! So there was tasty beef & kohlrabi stir-fry last night, and I made a leftover quiche this morning. That’s what I’ll grab for dinner tonight! Quiche! In my fridge!

So tonight I am swapping fresh roma tomatoes for dried ones and grey yarn for tall storage jars.

Tomorrow, I shall offer up fresh regular tomatoes and fresh basil in exchange for buschetta. Also exchanging vanilla, parsley, and mint for other delicious foodstuffs and socializing.

Sunday, I shall receive ginger beer as an exchange for jam.

YAY food!

Oh, and I also did laundry this morning. Only one load, even though I had two loads’ worth of clothing because that was all I had in currency. But I got the stinky gi washed, and all of my underwear, and a few other things. And all of the mentionables are hanging out on the line to dry.

And I got to work by 9am. (so I had to catch a cab in order to be timely, but I was totally in on time)

I can haz nap nao?

So yoga at 5:30? Mmm… probably not.

update – food planning aborted due to pantry moths

So I punted on Tuesday’s dinner plans – hopefully the eggplants will still be okay by Sunday.

Did not acquire more free peaches in a rare act of prudence (even if they would have been free again, I just don’t have time to even cut them up and sugar them this week. Maybe next week)

Came home last night to realize that I had a few kitchen moths so I did a pantry purge. Luckily, I grew up with a mother who was terrified of having kitchen moths, so most of my moth-friendly staples are in the fridge (all of my flour and most of my rice). But since I am sans-internet at home these days, I got all of my moth information from Meghan and my mother, each of whom has only dealt with them once. So I threw out the spices I had in plastic bags from the indian market because they are kinda floury (curry powder, ground coriander, etc.) and no one knew for sure either way, though both guessed they’d be fine. It’s cool – they were getting old. And I threw out my baking soda (the baking powder is in a canister) and corn starch and the bag of corn meal I bought 5 years ago and only used 2 Tablespoons of. I threw out my opened, but tightly clipped, bags of legumes but I did not throw out the new bags, which I suppose are just as likely to be permeable and/or infested, but meh! I did not throw out the oatmeal in a sealed plastic container, nor the basmati rice in a screw-top plastic jug. I threw out the tail end of a box of rotini, but I did not throw out the open spaghetti or lasagne noodles. And, without opening it, I think I figured out that the one thing most likely to have moths in it was the canister of bread crumbs, which hasn’t been opened in 6 months or so. So is there anything I haven’t thrown out that you think I should? What about the string of dried chilies hanging from the ceiling? Ooh, and the internet says they eat candy – I guess I’d better polish off my two fancy chocolate bars tonight.

food planning

I have three meals of food in my fridge – if only I have three nights of energy to make them.

Meal #1 – stir fry
beef, already cut in strips (but I haven’t added a marinade)
kohlrabi
onions
snow peas
fennel

Meal #2 – quesadillas
Mexican chorizo
leftover sauteed onions & peppers
summer squash
cheese
tortillas
salsa (not yet made)

Meal #3 – imam bayaldi
eggplants
leeks
tomatoes
parsley
olive oil

food in fridge not accounted for:
chicken leftovers
the rest of the summer squash
green beans
melon
more tomatoes

Tuesday, August 4
9pm go home promptly
line a baking sheet with foil
split green tomatoes in halves and set to roasting (350F)

clear off sewing table and pull out sewing machine

turn roasting pan

get out sewing machine, plug it in, and find white thread

wash japanese eggplants. Peel in strips and place in soup pot until the base if covered, no more (if there is eggplant left over, it’s going in the stir fry). Add olive oil to the soup pot and brown the eggplant, turning as you go.

Mark up the pants, and pin them while you are standing around turning the eggplant.

put roasted tomatoes in a container in the fridge.

Microwave cooked leeks, chop up tomatoes, chop garlic, chop parsley, squeeze lemon into a teacup and mix in sugar and some water

fill eggplants, pour liquid over, close up pot, lower heat, and let cook for 45 minutes.

hem pants

Wednesday, August 5
If pants are not hemmed yet, hem them OMG!
if pants are hemmed, vacuum floor.

breakfast: slice up the rest of friend’s bread and toast it. Mix together diced fresh tomato, roasted garlic, basil, and balsamic vinegar. Eat bruschetta.

toast some blueberry muffins and top with blueberry jelly.

set out work clothing

pack to take to work: peach chipotle jam

on way to karate, see if the thrift store has a bit canning pot

10:20am – karate!

1pm-9pm work work work

2pm – pop head out to the farmers’ market and offer to trade jam for more free peaches

9pm – leave work promptly (hopefully, lugging peaches home)

wash and slice all the summer squash, sautee it with fajita seasoning

pull the green tomatoes out of the fridge and remove the skins. Make salsa out of them.

stir a marinade into the stir fry beef

Pull the squash out and sautee the sausage. Add the onions and peppers in at the end.

make a salsa from fresh tomatoes?

pre-treat laundry?

make quesadillas and eat them – nom nom nom

save leftovers bits that didn’t fit in quesadillas.

Thursday, August 5
remove pie crust from fridge

8:30am take laundry to laundromat

slice open melon and eat it.

put pie crust in pie plate and prick

retrieve laundry and hang to dry

bake pie crust

plant cherry tomato plant?

buy dairy product?

put into crust:
– leftover chorizo
– leftover cooked squash
– parsley, lovage, thyme, savory
– leftover chicken
– any leftover cooked leek
– cheese
– eggs
– dairy

Make a quiche!

Don’t have time to eat the quiche, so pop it, loosely covered, in the fridge

go to work

work work work

9pm – come home promptly

remove clothes from line and put away

make stir fry!

read book for book group

Friday, August 7
cut a slice of quiche and take it to work for breakfast! Be smug.

pack to take to work: exercise clothes, grey yarn, roma tomatoes, a few regular tomatoes

9-5 work

5:30-6:45 yoga

7pm – dinner – of quiche!

8-11pm book group

come home and cut up some peaches and sugar them – put in refrigerator

Saturday, August 8
wake up early and cut and sugar the rest of the peaches

10-11:30 yoga
11:45-12:45 pilates

1pm go home and bathe, OMG! (yes, theoretically this has happened a few more times in the schedule, but still)

possibly eat – bagel and cream cheese? With a fried egg? Or maybe, just maybe, there might be some quiche left.

get character sheet and take a jar of peach sauce over to gaming group for hanging out and experimental food.

~*~

Chances of all of that happening with none falling by the wayside? Approaching 0%, but we’ll see.